Lifting Conversations

Schindler believes in leadership through customer excellence. Their highest quality of products, project management skills and service caters to the entire gamut of residential, commercial and infrastructure market. With their new elevator plant at Chakan near Pune and upcoming 70-meter tall elevator test tower, and a global R&D centre, the company has recently set another milestone. We speak to Antony Parokaran, CEO, Schindler India to throw some light on their industry and what the company has to offer.

Throw some light on the elevator industry in India.
India is the second biggest elevator market after China, with more than 50,000 elevators sold every year. Supported by the GDP growth, we expect the current growth rate of 10-12% to increase further. The growth is mainly driven by residential segment and also the growth in tier 2 & tier 3 cities. Another area of development has been the new infrastructure projects such as metro railways and airports. Schindler has been a proud partner in many of these, such as the new Mumbai International Airport terminal 2, Chennai airport, Kolkata airport, Mumbai and Bengaluru metro. We are also seeing a gradual shift from manual to automatic doors owing to market focus on safety, reliability and energy efficiency and expect the trend to continue in future.

How has Schindler contributed to this industry?
Schindler India, in the last 15 years has revolutionized the industry. Our Machine Room Less (MRL) elevators offer our customers never-before advantages like flexibility to design, better building aesthetics and reduced costs of construction. Schindler has always consciously stayed away from manual door elevators and actively plays the role in shifting the market to safer and more energy efficient automatic door elevators.

Our expertise in high-rise projects is evident from the landmark high rise buildings such as Shreepati Arcade, Antilia, Imperial Towers and we are also proud to be associated with the tallest residential building in the world - he World Towers, which will be equipped with high-speed Schindler elevators (S7000), some of them running at a speed of 8 m/sec, the fastest in India.

With our With our three world class training centres across the country, we are enhancing the skill set of our employees and sub-contractors. These trained and certified technicians ensure flawless installation and the highest levels of maintenance. Schindler consistently focuses on executing installations through its own certified technicians rather than using subcontractors. With the significant proportions of installations carried by our own certified technicians, Schindler is able to ensure better quality of installation, reliability and safety; thereby setting a new trend in the industry.

What are the most innovative products and technologies introduced by Schindler?
We have strong track record of introducing innovative products, starting with machine room less elevators. Our machine-room-less and gearless elevators 3100IN and 3300IN have been widely accepted by our customers. Recently we introduced Schindler 5500 that takes configurability to a new level - it uniquely combines performance, flexibility and design, which makes it easy to fit to the requirements of commercial, mid and high-end residential buildings.

We are the pioneers in destination control system, Miconic-10, a revolutionary traffic-handling concept to bring passengers to their destinations sooner, with less crowding and more comfort, eliminating the traditional pushbuttons inside the elevator cars. Our next generation of Transit Management Technology - PORT (Personal Occupant Requirement Terminal) uses a state-of-the-art software to integrate efficient traffic management and a host of powerful access, communication, security and energy saving features, which can revolutionize the way people move through buildings seamlessly.

How do your products help conserve energy and cut costs in the long term?
The energy required to operate an elevator can account for upto 80% of its environmental impact over its entire life cycle. To improve energy efficiency, Schindler uses materials that have lower environmental impact and can be disposed in ecologically sound manner. The development of much lighter components has resulted in further energy savings.

Schindler´s Miconic-10 hall call destination system optimizes travel within buildings and thus leads to reduction in energy consumption. Our third generation PORT transit management system now interconnects the entire building and provides architects with new possibilities in traffic management and security planning.

We continuously improve the energy efficiency of our escalators also. With ECOLINE power management, our customers can define whether the escalator should run at full speed during peak times and automatically slow down or even stop when there are no passengers.

How does Schindler make customisation of elevators possible?
Schindler has recently introduced a new elevator Schindler 5500. The custom-modular designs of Schindler 5500 offers unbelievable flexibility to architects while designing the elevator shafts. Our customers can decide whether they want an elevator with a machine room or without one. They can choose the car interiors from a wide range available in the product, or they can simply order a bare cabin and create their own interiors.